Featured Is My Book Rare

My father recently passed and I have found several interesting books I would like to learn a little more about. One book is A Flight of Fancies by Norman Gale. The book is dedicated to my Grandmother and signed by the author. Inside the cover of the book is a letter to my Grandmother dated 1926 from the author. Any comments or insight would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

 

@TraceyB , we can tell more about the value from a picture of the copyright page, can tell if it's a first edition or not. The condition of the entire book also comes into play when trying to determine if a book is valuable.

I know it's valuable to you!

 

Hi, Tracey! It's rare in that there don't appear to be a lot of copies around. But rarity doesn't equate to value. And in the case of your volume which is a later work by a prolific poet, the value would largely be sentimental. Here's a short biography of the Norman Gale (if you haven't already found it.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Gale

Debora

 

Interesting -- I found a couple of presentation copies, with personal notes, listed for sale online, along with an earlier mention in Google Books of a copy in which Norman Gale wrote a personal note that sounds the same as a note described in another listing. He mentioned that Flight of Fancies was his Swan Song, as he was planning to switch from poetry to prose. It sounds like he was somebody who cared enough to write personal notes to his friends, and perhaps even to acquaintances. From what I can tell, the book was either self published or was published by a small press. Does your copy have a publisher listed?

Given that there were probably not many copies printed, that would mean that it is scarce. As Debora mentioned, that doesn't mean it has much monetary value... but you didn't ask about value anyway.

And also, @TraceyB , welcome to Antiquers!

 

Thank you so much to all of you for your interesting responses. Clearly I have a lot to learn!! I have looked in the book for a copyright page however I am not sure what I am looking for. There is nothing that says copyright. What else should I be looking for? I hope my very basic questions don't offend and I am sure I will have a lot of them as there are several books in the collection with a couple dating back to the 1700's. I have uploaded a couple of images.
Thanks again.

 

I forgot to mention there is no publisher mentioned but it does say printed in England by Knoch Press.
Thanks again.

 

If you look at the link I provided you, it lists his work by publication date. Flights of Fancy was published in 1926. And thank you for the photographs. From them we can see that it has its dust jacket which generally adds value but the pages are damaged by foxing* which generally hurts value.

Foxing*
Brown spotting of the paper caused by a chemical reaction, generally found in 19th century books, particularly in steel engravings of the period.

Debora

 

Tracey, publishing info should be on the BACK of that title page

Debora is right about the foxing, but if the book is truly rare, it's not important. It's certainly not important for sentimental value. Is the book bound with string? It would appear to be of that genre.

 

Yes, the book is bound by string. I have attached the reverse side of the previous page and still nothing about copyright. The pages almost look as though they have been hand cut.

 

Printed by Kynoch Press. Here's information about them. They weren't a publisher; they were a printer. According to the internet, Gale had the books printed privately which could explain why every copy we see floating around the internet is inscribed.

https://theironroom.wordpress.com/2018/07/09/birmingham-kynoch-press-notebook-diaries/

Debora

 

How very interesting. Would that be the reason there is no mention of copyright?

 

Perhaps he chose not to.

Debora

 

So if there is a printed dedication in the book, and the book is then inscribed to this person by the author, we call this the 'dedication copy'. It is, of course, unique, and so valuable, always depending on the relative fame of author and dedicatee. As an example, a copy of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls inscribed by him to Martha Gellhorn, his wife at the time of its publication, and to whom he dedicated the book, would be worth much more than just any old signed copy - which will already be worth a lot.

Your book appears to be printed for the author, and so may be very uncommon. The copyright procedure was, at the time, somewhat complicated, and he may have been unconcerned about piracy - many poets would LOVE to have someone print their work at no expense to them! It is possible he had only a few dozen printed for distribution to family and friends, in which case we would expect most or all to be signed, or there may have been a few hundred for sale at local shops. If no unsigned copies ever show up, the latter is unlikely. It was fairly common to publish books this way, and not terribly expensive.

 

Interesting information. Thank you! -- Although it's not my book, I like information on publishing practices. Probably related to my former life as a librarian.

 

Very interesting information. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.